Introduction

Universal Reality

Photography captures a moment in history, a particular second in time. We are living in a time that is informed by our past. A place is formed not with one story, but a collective story of each individual which offers multiple interpretations.

This festival centres on the theme of urbanism and the challenges we face globally and locally. We are living in a shifting world that changes and where interactions take place on a daily basis – that is part of contemporary city life. During this process, what has been created and what has been made to disappear? What does that mean to us? We are hoping to understand and explore further through the eyes of individual artists, and the dialogue generated through their works. We believed artists play an important role in inventing their own universe, and re-inject the liveliness into the world we live in. They respond to the world and bring our attention to particular subject matters that worth thinking through.

The photographers invited to take part in this festival span different generations and backgrounds. The far-passed life, urban development, recent political social activity – collectively they are telling a rich and three dimensional story of the city, from multiple cultural perspectives, which echoes recent development in both China and the UK.